James 1:19

Know this, my dear brothers and sisters:

everyone should be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger

for anger does not accomplish

the righteousness of God.

These words from the letter of James struck me this week - they were part of the daily readings on Wednesday.  They cut right through me.  I can't tell you how many times I have been slow to hear, quick to speak and quick to become angry.  These words have echoed through my mind over and over.  

Quick to hear

I ask myself - how can I be "quick to hear"?  I want to speak before the other person is done talking.  I want to make my point before I forget it.  I want to "solve" their problem or offer unsolicited advice.  Part of being quick to hear is understanding that not everyone who tells you about their life wants advice.  

Slow to speak

Ouch.  That's a real problem.  I always have something to say and it frequently results in putting my foot in my mouth.  It's a horrible feeling to look back on the day and regret so many things you said that didn't need to be said.  Words that hurt, that tear down, that spread negative attitudes - it doesn't matter if you intended to bring hurt and negativity.  You did.

Slow to anger

If you have ever spent time with preschool age children, you know that controlling anger is a difficult skill to learn.  Why do I need to control my temper?  It's the way I feel and I can't help how I feel!  By the time kids are in second grade they understand that while they can't control their emotions, they need to have enough self-control so their anger doesn't lead them.  Sometimes I think I need to go back to kindergarten.

I keep reading these words and I do see a pattern.  It's the way of Christ.  It begins with being quick to hear.  Listening.  Hearing.  Chewing on the words, the body language, the messages of others, the meaning.  If I'm keeping the hearing slow, that keeps me from speaking too quickly.  Do I really need to say something?  Will my words have a positive impact?  Does my yes mean yes and my no mean no?  If I'm slow to speak it makes it less likely that my anger will escape.  I won't have to go back to preschool.  Outbursts of anger aren't just embarrassing, they are destructive.

Anger does not accomplish the righteousness of God.

I believe God wants to use us to be the light of Christ.  I can't see the person of Jesus, but I can see Him in my brothers and sisters who are quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger.  They show me there is an alternative to the noise, the arguing, the constant assault of sound.  It's peace.  Peace is my word this year and I may just find it if I listen more, speak less and keep my anger in check.

Know this, my dear brothers and sisters:

everyone should be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger

for anger does not accomplish

the righteousness of God.

cindy

What About the Saint in Valentine's Day?

The day traditionally associated with love and romance is nearly upon us.  Friday is the feast of St. Valentine, but much of the world might not realize that.  So just who was St. Valentine and how is he connected with love?

There are many St. Valentines in the Roman calendar (Valentinus was a popular name), but the one celebrated on February 14 may be one or two people.  There was a martyred third century bishop named Valentine, but also a Roman priest by the same name who was martyred under the rule of the Emperor Claudius.  There is also a theory that these descriptions are of the same person.  One thing we do know - this man was martyred for his faith.  As a pope in the fifth century noted, Valentine's acts are known to God alone, and that was probably good enough for Valentine.

So why is this saint connected with hearts and flowers?  It has nothing to do with the man, at least not St. Valentine.  The connection lies with Geoffrey Chaucer and his poem Parlement of Foules (1382).  In modern English:  "For this was on St. Valentine's day when every bird comes there to choose his mate."  Birds, mates, flowers, candy, cards - you get it.

I still think this saint is associated with love.  St. Valentine, whoever he was, loved God enough to die for Him.  

CC  

There's Something About Mary

My mother's name was Mary.  She was a really good mom and I loved her.  She was strong in her faith and I would like to think I share that with her.  She didn't talk about it much, but I know she believed in the power of prayer.  Like most people, when I had problems, I talked to my mom.  I asked her help.  I knew she would do anything she could for me even if she could not directly solve the problem.

One of the most common misunderstandings non-Catholics have about Catholicism is our devotion to Jesus' mom, Mary.  We call her the Blessed Virgin, Our Lady, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven and many, many more titles, but bottom line, she's Jesus' mom.  We don't see that as just another woman in the salvation story.  She's His mom.

When we were planning our wedding, I told the parish administrator who was with our ceremony that I wanted to include "flowers to Mary," a moment where I could take flowers to a statue of Mary and say a prayer.  I was told that they didn't do that unless there was a specific devotion to Mary.  I told them I had a special devotion.  I'm not sure if I really considered it that at the time, but it was important to me to include it in our wedding.  I remember asking Mary to pray for our marriage.

I think a lot of people don't understand what it means to "pray" to Mary.  I don't think Mary has the ability to do things only God can do.  When I "prayed" to her during my wedding, I wasn't asking for her to do anything really supernatural.  I was just asking her to join me in praying for our marriage.  I know my mother was praying, why wouldn't I want Jesus' mother interceding for His blessing on our marriage?

When we were having difficulties having a baby, there was a moment in the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in Santa Fe, New Mexico where I said a prayer before an image of Mary.  I didn't realize it at the time, but it was La Conquistadora, Our Lady of the Rosary, the oldest image of Mary in the Americas.  I laid it all there - my fears, the pressure, all of it.  As I stood up, I felt a real sense of release.  I knew there was another person helping me.  It's the same kind of thing I would ask my mom.

I recognize that a devotion to Mary and her unique role in the Church can't be fully described in this short post.  However, I do think it's a starting point to understanding of how she helps me, mothers me, intercedes for me.

After all, if you want help trying to persuade a guy to do something, who better to ask than his mother, right?

CC

Rolling Stone? Eh, Not So Much

Gonna see my picture on the cover

Gonna buy five copies for my mother

Gonna see my shining face

On the cover of the Rolling Stone!

By now most people have heard that Pope Francis is on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.  I loved the cover photo of him smiling and waving, but the picture printed with the article, sitting sideways in the shadows - very cool, very hip.  That's awesome, I thought, even Rolling Stone recognizes this man as a fresh face in the Catholic Church.  I couldn't wait to read the article.  I found an online version of the article and dove right in.

Now, I expected the typical misquotes/misinterpretations that the secular media love to attribute to Pope Francis with the suggestion that he's going to turn Catholic teaching on its head.  That's fine, I thought, that wouldn't be the first time, and hey, if it gets people to take a second look (or come home) to the Church, that's OK.

Much of Mark Binelli's piece was pretty good.  He describes a general audience and the passionate reaction of the throngs to Pope Francis.  He gives a detailed and interesting view into Pope Francis' life as a young priest in Argentina and his ascension to cardinal.  He also gave a lot of print to how Pope Francis is reforming the Curia, the body that works with the pope on the operations of the Church.

But there was a good deal of nastiness and Church bashing.  Binelli focuses most of his vitriol on Pope Emeritus Benedict, making it personal:  "After the disastrous papacy of Benedict, a staunch traditionalist who looked like he should be wearing a striped shirt with knife-fingered gloves and menacing teenagers in their nightmares . . ."  (Why didn't he just come out and say Freddy Kruger?)  I guess Mr. Binelli has an axe to grind. (Sorry, I couldn't help it.)

Alright, I thought, this is a "liberal" secular publication, I shouldn't be surprised to read a negative criticism of Pope Benedict compared to Pope Francis.  Then I reached page 2.  Wow.  I was met with a spew of anti-Catholic bashing.  I guess the good news is that Pope Francis isn't mentioned on page 2 until the end of the last paragraph.  The bad news?  After spending a paragraph on a detailed tour of the "truly terrible popes" in history, Binelli uses several paragraphs to offer a scathing evaluation of the papacy of Pope Benedict, followed by accusations that tie him to American GOP politicians, who are then accused of being members of Opus Dei.  (No, not that!)

Binelli gives a lot of attention to Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis' first apostolic exhortation on spreading the Good News in today's world.  He predictably focuses on the alleged indictment of capitalism (which is neither the theme or the substance of the document) and smears it in the faces of American conservatives.  Sigh.  I expected that too.

I think the part of the article that left me cold was Binelli's insinuation that Pope Francis is a wolf in sheep's clothing, even if it a wolf he admires.  According to Binelli, he can tell that Pope Francis really does support Liberation Theology ("liberation theology has clearly influenced his own papacy, most markedly in the language of Evangelii Gaudium").  He also spends a lot of time stressing that Pope Francis doesn't really care about Church teaching on social issues relating to homosexuality, marriage, divorce, contraception and abortion.  I did have to giggle though, when he implied that a questionnaire distributed in Catholic parishes about these family issues constituted a "nod to democracy."  He also suggests that Pope Francis plays in political intrigue, describing his "dexterity - and, if the situation demands, ruthlessness - as an operator."  (Of course, this is Rolling Stone!).

I will admit that after my first read of the article I was much more critical, mostly because Binelli heaped so much contempt on Pope Benedict ("it's hard to imagine a worse choice to meet the particular challenges facing the Catholic Church than Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger"), Church teaching and the Eucharist (calling a Vatican document on it "wonky"and saying that "desecration of Communion wafers" is an "esoteric" sin).  However, on further read, the theme that "The Times They Are A-Changn'" is probably true.  Pope Francis has certainly attracted a lot of attention from the secular media and he is changing the focus.  However, Binelli's suggestion that Pope Francis is a wolf in sheep's clothing may turn out to be true - just not in the way he thinks.

CC

9 Days to Life - Day 9 The End?

Hey, if you've managed to make it through all of this novena (and a lot of you have), congratulations. If you're reading one of these posts for the first time its never too late to pray.  You can find the last day of the novena HERE.

I was in the third grade when the Roe v. Wade was issued.  I will never forget sitting in church hearing for the first time that it was no longer illegal for mothers to kill the babies inside of them.  I remember how offended I was and shocked that this could be happening.  At the time no one believed it would last.  I remember thinking that if abortion was still going on when I grew up I would work to make it stop.  I don't know if the last 9 days qualifies as a heroic effort, but prayer is a powerful thing and I remind myself daily that we need to keep storming heaven's door for divine intervention in this tragic horror.

In 1973, the Supreme Court decided that a person has an inherent right to privacy, a right which had never been recognized before.  The Court argued that whether a woman bore a child was a private decision.  I agree.  A woman has the right to choose whether she engages in intercourse that might result in pregnancy.  For a victim of rape or incest that right to choose has been violated at the time she was not allowed to choose to have intercourse.  Once the private choice (or violation of choice) has been made and a human life comes into being, that human also has inherent rights.  Namely, the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."  There are no other rights if a person does not have the right to life and frankly, the right to life surpasses all other rights.

Since the time of Roe v. Wade, science has definitively established that life begins at conception.  We have seen photographs of a baby developing over nine months in the womb.  We have advanced instrumentation that allows us to see and hear a baby's heartbeat at 6-8 weeks.  We have advanced far enough in medicine to save babies born prematurely who live a full life.  Yet we have an archaic decision from 1973 that assumed a fetus had no rights because it was not a life in being.  Because a fetus is not a life in being, the argument goes, it has no rights, much less rights which can trump a mother's right to privacy.  Today, we know better but we can still legally take away a child's right to continue living from the moment of conception up to the point it is born.

This is simply not right or morally acceptable for a "civilized" country.  We are better than that.  It degrades us as Americans; more fundamentally it degrades us as a species.  For anyone with a conscience to know that abortion ends a human life, there is simply no "right" which justifies it.  This isn't a Catholic issue or even a Christian issue.  It's a matter of human decency.

Thanks for reading.  I promise to return to a less militant tone.  This blog is not just about being pro-life; it's about being comfortably Catholic.  To me, being Catholic means being pro-life so this won't be the last time I write on the topic.  However, in order to regain a better sense of peace, I must step back from being the "defender of the faith" so I can rest in the arms of the Lord.

Peace

CC

9 Days to Life - Day Eight

Now that the March for Life in Washington DC and Walk for Life West Coast are over, it's time to think about the practicalities of what can be done to address the needs of the women who find themselves in the difficult position of an unwanted pregnancy.  Faced with the seemingly simple choice of abortion on demand versus the unknown answers to the long term social and economic difficulties of continuing a pregnancy and making hard choices for the baby after birth, is it no wonder millions of women choose abortion?

We need to support those who offer specific and reliable services to these women so the unknown future has a light at the end of the tunnel.  Gimme Shelter is a movie that opened Friday about the journey of a pregnant teen - from a drug addicted mother and foster homes to the dramatically different affluent lifestyle of her father.  Surprisingly, neither is suitable for the teen's choice to have her baby.

While some reviewers have panned the movie as unrealistic and heavy-handed, it is trying to convey a lot of messages simultaneously:  Kids are abused by parents and a foster care system that keeps shuffling them; wealthy families see teen pregnancy as a matter to be "taken care of"; the Church has guidance available with real answers about the morality of abortion; and there are places where women can find shelter.  These are all messages that need to be heard and to get a movie made about any of these topics is difficult at best.

I can't give a laundry list of services that are available, but there are crisis pregnancy centers throughout the United States that can give referrals to the many independent privately run shelters that offer a place to stay and education and job counseling.  In Phoenix, the best known is an organization called Maggie's Place.  It offers all of the above in a family atmosphere supported by private donations - no government support.  Shouldn't every city have at least one Maggie's Place?  If we call ourselves pro-life shouldn't be support these places where mothers and children get a start at a new life?

As noted in today's reflection: "There is absolutely nothing and no one outside of the power of God's loving embrace.  Today we remember the children, the mothers, fathers, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles and all those who have been involved in or affected by abortion.  We entrust them to the unfathomable healing mercy of God, recalling the words of Jesus to St. Faustina: 'The greater the misery of a soul, the greater its right to My mercy.' (Diary, 1182).  Go HERE to see today's novena prayers and complete reflection.

Thanks for your continued prayers.

CC

9 Days to Life - Day 7

Today the focus and voice of the pro-life movement shifts to the West Coast.  Who would think that you could gather so may pro-lifers in San Francisco?  Today is the day!  Walk for Life West Coast!

As I write this, the activities are ongoing.  Most years, my son's school attends the Walk, but unfortunately not this year.  It's too bad - I would have loved to go.  A couple of weekend ago my husband and I were in San Francisco.  We were surprised - pleasantly so - to see banners advertising the Walk - officially - on lamp posts.  In a city that has a reputation for being "liberal" it's exciting to know 50,000 or more are expected to march for life.  We are moving ahead.

We still need prayer, probably more than anything else.  Let's keep praying.  Find today' novena prayers/reflections HERE

CC